Pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. The post, in theaters everywhere january 12. Babbel. A language app that teaches reallife conversations in a new language. Supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the worlds most pressing problems skollfoundation. Org. The lemelson foundation. Committed to improving lives through invention, in the u. S. And developing countries. On the web at lemelson. Org. Supported by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation. Committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information at macfound. Org and with the ongoing support of these institutions this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Brangham theres a new storm at the Trump White House tonight, and steve bannon is at its center. A new book quotes him saying President Trump never expected to win the election, and that it was treasonous for donald trump jr. To meet with a russian lawyer in 2016. The president shot back at his former chief strategist in a statement, saying, when he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. White House Press SecretarySarah Sanders dismissed the allegations, and said mr. Trump is justifiably angry. I think, furious, disgusted would probably certainly fit, when you make such outrageous claims and completely false claims against the president , his administration and his family. Brangham well delve into this more deeply, after the news summary. In the days other news, former Trump Campaign chair Paul Manafort sued the Justice Department and special counsel Robert Mueller, whos leading the russia investigation. Manafort has been charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, working for ukraine. He argues investigators overstepped their bounds by indicting him for conduct unrelated to russian interference in the election. Irans elite revolutionary guards has now deployed to three provinces to put down protests that began a week ago. At least 21 have dies, and the unrest kept spreading today, even as officials organized major rallies to support the government. Well have a full report, later in the program. North korea reopened a Cross Border Communications channel with south korea today, for the first time in nearly two years. At the same time, new taunts flew between washington and pyongyang. On monday, kim jongun warned that he had a Nuclear Button and his weapons could reach all of the u. S. Mainland. President trump responded last night, saying, i too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his, and my button works palestinian officials are condemning what they say is blackmail by President Trump. He charged yesterday the palestinians are not doing enough to make peace with israel, and he suggested cutting u. S. Funding to the palestinian authority. Today, palestinian leaders said its mr. Trump who sabotaged the Peace Process, by recognizing jerusalem as israels capital. I would say that palestinian rights are not for sale and we will not succumb to blackmail. There are imperatives and requirements for peace, and unilaterally, President Trump has destroyed them. He has even sabotaged our efforts at achieving a just peace and getting freedom and dignity for the palestinian people. Brangham congress estimates the u. S. Provides an average of 400 million a year in economic aid to palestinians in the west bank and gaza. Ethiopia has announced its releasing Political Prisoners and closing a prison camp in the wake of antigovernment protests. The prime ministers surprise announcement marked the first time the government admitted to holding Political Prisoners. A Violent Storm swept across western europe today, knocking out power, disrupting transportation and killing one person. Wind gusts up to 100 miles an hour battered towns across france, britain, ireland and switzerland, uprooting trees and flooding coastlines. Several hundred thousand homes have lost power. The storm also derailed trains, halted highway traffic in places and grounded thousands of flights. The u. S. Deep south is still reeling from a rare winter storm that dumped snow and freezing rain along the coast today. It shut down interstates and airports, and dropped the first snow in tallahassee, florida in decades. As much as three inches of snow fell in charleston, South Carolina and parts of coastal georgia. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper warned of treacherous conditions. We expect that travel will be difficult and dangerous, with Power Outages that are possible. The good news is that the storm is moving quickly, should be gone by thursday evening. The bad news is that unusually cold temperatures are sticking around for several days. Brangham the worst could come tomorrow as the storm moves north. Hurricaneforce winds are forecast, with blizzard conditions in new england. A dry winter in california has sparked new concerns of another drought. Water officials today measured little snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which can supply the officials said its not yet time to panic, as it is still early in the rain season, and record rainfall last year left reservoirs with plenty of water. The u. S. Senate now has two new democratic members. Doug jones of alabama and tina smith of minnesota were sworn in today at the capitol, as the senate formally began its 2018 session. Jones is the first democrat in a quartercentury to win a senate seat in alabama. His election narrows the republican majority to 5149. Smith was appointed to fill al frankens seat, after he stepped down amid allegations of sexual misconduct. On wall street today, health care and tech stocks pushed the overall market higher. The Dow Jones Industrial average gained 98 points to close at 24,922. The nasdaq rose 58 points, and the s p 500 added 17, to top 2,700 for the first time. And, the president of the mormon church, thomas monson, passed away last night. Monson served in top Leadership Councils for the church for more than 50 years, and became president in 2008. He was known for emphasizing humanitarian work and for leading the churchs opposition to samesex marriage. Thomas monson was 90 years old. Still to come on the newshour what role the russia investigation is playing in the public rift between President Trump and steve bannon. How the president s tweets on Foreign Policy resonate around the world. A new, lowcost way to fight cavities. And, much more. Brangham we return to the public rift today between President Trump and his former chief strategist, steve bannon. Hari sreenivasan explores how the spat was sparked by the russia investigation. Sreenivasan in excerpts of an upcoming book on the trump presidency, steve bannon is quoted as calling a june 2016 meeting that donald trump jr. And other Campaign Aides held with a group of russians as treasonous and unpatriotic. Separately, another focus of the russia investigation returned to the headlines, after two founders of fusion g. P. S. , a Political Research firm that commissioned the socalled steele dossier, wrote an oped for the New York Times. We breakdown these latest twists and turns with mark mazzetti, washington investigations editor for the New York Times; and robert costa, host of Washington Week and National Political reporter for the washington post. Robert, we saw the white house come out very strongly against steve bannon today. Steve had very little to do with their historic victory, was one of the quotes they put out in the statement. Not only did he lose his job, but he also lost his mind. Put steve bannon in perspective here on how important or what kind of role he played in the campaign and in the presidency. A strong and visceral response from President Trump and his advisors today, it is the culmination of a somewhat winding path that was taken by bannon ever since he was chief strategist at the white house, in 2017. He departs last summer. He remained in close contact with President Trump in recent months talking through issues like the Alabama Senate race, but after this new book by michael wolf, people close to the president tell me they dont expect him to speak to bannon anytime soon. They feel burned about the comments hes made especially about the president and the president s family. Sreenivasan i was going to say, what does this tell us about the president . Because there seems to be lots of different thresholds of critique that he can withstand. It tells us the president fights as he did in the 1980s and 90s, still now in a compattive tabloid style. He doesnt mind these comments that bannon has lost his mind. But there is an asterisk when it comes to President Trump. If you look to roger stone and many business associates, he has quoan to war with people in the past and mended the relationships and continued to talk to people. So im not ready to write off bannon as a reporter and say hes totally outside the president s inner circumstance bull certainly this is a major new bump in that relationship. Sreenivasan the meeting in trump tower between donald trump, jr. And some of the russians was one of the focal points of the russia investigation but the other was dossier written by fusion g. P. S. Mark mazzetti, bring us up to speed on what was in there and other reporting they had. The dossier was commissioned by the firm fusion g. P. S. And they hired a former british spy Christopher Steele to put together information and research any connections between donald trump and russia. This occurred over 2016, and, at the very beginning of 2017, almost exactly a year ago, it became public when buzz feed published the dossier and it was sort of a wideranging series of accusations about trumps relations with the russians. Some charges were quite salacious, and it has quite hung over this story for the better part of a year, this question of is what is in the dossier true, and it is also those that we come a kind of cudgel by the republicans to try to beat back the issue of trump and russia, theyre trying to paint the dossier as a political opposition hired by Hillary Clinton and the democrats, and as a political document rather than as a piece of intelligence. Sreenivasan mark, theres also this back and forth on who wants what public and in what forum, right . I mean, the people at fusion g. P. S. Says their reporting and their Research UncoveredMoney Laundering and other links between the president and russians, and they said they would prefer to have all their testimony presented to congress which might not have been in the dossier to be public and, at the same time, we have members of congress saying, fine, the invitation for you to be public is open. Right, so theyve already testified before congress and as they said in the oped, they would like transcripts of the testimony released. That will be up to the discretion of members of congress to do so and you saw some republicans push back today and say, well, well have you back in open testimony so we can question you again in public. And i do think that this is going to be a theme Going Forward of, again, republicans trying to paint the dossier in a certain light and the people behind it as metical operatives. And this is going to be, i think, a little bit of the chess match Going Forward. Sreenivasan and, mark, as your team or teams of the reporters at the New York Times uncovered as early as this last weekend, the dossier and whats in it is not the reason the f. B. I. Launched the investigation into the russian meddling in the first place. As we reported over the weekend, the predicate for the investigation which began in july 2016 was not the dossier, it was a couple of things, and a significant factor in it was this meeting that George Papadopoulos a former adviser to the Trump Campaign had a night of drinking with australias top diplomat in the kingdom in may of 2016 and revealed he learned russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. A couple of months later his government cabled this government and led to the investigation being launched later that month. Sreenivasan robert costa, the president has had multiple statements on what he thinks about Robert Mueller, the f. B. I. , the d. O. J. One of the most recent ones is he thinks Robert Mueller will be fair but this investigation makes the country look bad. How do we figure out what his threshold is for tolerating how close this investigation is getting and perhaps how that infuriates him . So far, the indictments that have come forward have been to Campaign Advisors to the president s campaign in 2016. They have not reached his inner circle in a major way. They have not reached his own family or himself. And because of that, theres a reluctance among the president , im told, to really combat mueller at this time, to go after him in a public way. Thats why he keeps saying, in statement after statement, that he believes mural will be fair and that hes just going to let the process play its course. But theres a spoiling right now on the right for a fight against mueller that this investigation has gone on too long. So if he ever changes his tune, the president knows on the right wing of the republican party, there are elements and groups and major figures who are telling him in the white house we are ready to take on mueller. We havent reached that threshold yet, in part, my reporting tells me, because this investigation has not come exactly into the white house in a serious way the white house would see as debilitating. Sreenivasan robert costa, mark mazzetti, thank you both. Thank you. Brangham protests continued across iran today, watched closely by the white house and other global leaders. The demonstrations center on economic insecurity and a lack of opportunity, especially for the islamic republics young people. Now, the iranian government is moving to counter the message of the protests. After a week of growing national protests, the Iranian Regime sought to change the narrative. State tv showed tens of thousands of people marching in orchestrated, progovernment demonstrations. In markazi province, people held up signs supporting Supreme Leader ayatollah ali khamenei. But state media ignored cell phone video of protesters tearing down likenesses of khamenei in noorabad, 200 miles southwest of irans capital tehran. Crowds there also burned an ambulance, after accusing the local hospital of refusing to helping their wounded. Supreme leader khamenei has blamed the protests on enemies of iran, and today, the commander of the elite revolutionary guard sent troops into three provinces to put down what he called the new sedition. Some in tehran urged the regime to heed legitimate concerns about the economic woes of the iranian people. translated protesters are divided into two groups. One group is really protesting, and the other is rioting. Why should they arrest someone like me when i protest the rise in the price of eggs . trnslated if the protest slogans are insulting, nothing is going to be resolved. On the other hand, my husband and i are working together but still cannot make ends meet. Brangham from washington, President Trump again tweeted his support for the protests, and he promised, you will see great support from the United States at the appropriate time meanwhile, u. N. Secretary general Antonio Guterres condemned the loss of life, and called for avoiding further violence, and turkish officials said irans president Hassan Rouhani told turkeys president recip Tayip Erdogan that he hopes the unrest will end in a couple of days. For more on the latest in iran, i spoke earlier today with Thomas Erdbrink of the New York Times. Hes in tehran and has been covering the protests for a week. Thomas, you wrote today that the blossoming of these protests was really driven in large part by the leak of a governmental budget that showed big increases in money to clerics and hard liners and military groups at the same time as cutting money from social services for the iranian people. Can you tell us a little bit more about that budget and why it struck such a chord . The presentation of irans Budget Proposal every year is a big thing because it contains, you know, most Financial Information